The Leopardstown authorities describe their chances of racing today as "probably not even 50-50", and already there is the possibility of Istabraq's comeback race being re-scheduled to Sunday.

Yesterday's entire Ericsson Chase programme has already been transferred to Sunday and hopes are not high for today's scheduled card.

"We're inspecting at 7 a.m. but with the forecast it's probably not even 50-50 about going ahead," Leopardstown's racing manager Tom Burke said yesterday.

"There's the possibility of snow showers and pretty low temperatures, so it's a case of take your pick. If it doesn't go ahead we plan to defer to Saturday but at the moment Saturday would look no better than 50-50. Moving Istabraq's race to Sunday is certainly a possibility.

"Mild weather is supposed to be coming in on Saturday night when we will probably see some rain and we're very optimistic for Sunday," Burke added.

The Foxrock racecourse yesterday failed a morning inspection, which came as no surprise.

On Sunday, Leopardstown will share the New Year's Eve date with Gowran, where they are optimistic about racing.

?????1/1/The Gowran manager Tom Carroll said yesterday: "We would have raced today and we seem to be in some sort of unique pocket because we've only had a few flakes of snow. If the forecast is accurate we will race on Sunday." There was a less happy report from Fairyhouse, which is scheduled to race on New Year's Day. Almost half an inch of snow covered the Co Meath track yesterday and an inspection is planned for tomorrow morning at 8.00.

No problems are forecast for the other New Year's Day programme at Tramore.

The current spell of cold weather has wiped out all four of today's meetings in Britain and of tomorrow's quartet of jumps cards only Fontwell is optimistic of going ahead.